


the language of injury

by Ias



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Biting, Bruises, Doomed Relationship, M/M, Masochism, Porn with Feelings, Rough Sex, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, how many times can I use that tag for this ship is the real question, unhealthy everything really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 08:46:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5579014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nightmares come as they will. What Annatar needs, Celebrimbor cannot give him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the language of injury

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crackinthecup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackinthecup/gifts).



When they finally came, Celebrimbor’s words were quiet things, creeping things, slipping out of his mouth like small shadows on the edge of the forest afraid to step into the light. “Who were you thinking of?”

Annatar lay with his back to him. Strange, how the touch of moonlight could make the skin and bones of his broad shoulders look as delicate as cloth stretched over a spindle, as fragile a moth’s wing. Mottled like a moth, as well. Celebrimbor’s hands traced over the spots of darkness that had not been there before, watched the way his fingers lined up with them. There was a bite mark on Annatar’s neck that went so deep it nearly bled. He could taste its copper on his tongue even now. Celebrimbor felt a curl of unease that bordered on fear, as if Annatar’s marred skin was a mirror and he had found someone unexpected staring back from it.

Annatar said nothing. It was not a patient, contemplative kind of silence, a silence that waited for the right words to come. This silence would not end unless Celebrimbor forced it to. But perhaps that, too, was what Annatar wanted.

It had happened so quickly. Celebrimbor had returned to his chambers from a tiresome, frustrating day, only to find Annatar waiting for him with two cups of wine. This in itself was a surprise, for Annatar had left him coldly that morning after another night populated by nightmares, figments which jerked him awake wide-eyed and anguished in the earliest hours of the night, terrors which the Maia refused to explain. After the worst of those nights Annatar would be gone for days, riding out of the city to face his demons or perhaps to hold congress with them. Yet here he was that very night, dressed in his fine silks with a smile on his face as stiff as the grimace of a corpse. The sight of him had sent a pang of dread through Celebrimbor’s heart, the source of which he could not name.

Celebrimbor had pleaded out of what Annatar offered, desiring only his bed—Annatar had grabbed his wrists and slammed him to the wall so hard it hurt. But the kiss that followed was gentle, apologetic: and when Annatar led him to the bed and lay him down upon it that kiss had trailed down Celebrimbor’s chest, stomach, lower, until Celebrimbor had forgotten his exhaustion, forgotten everything but Annatar’s touch and the desire for more of it.

That had not been so strange. But that had only been the beginning. For it was Annatar who then crawled up to his ear and began to whisper, whisper things that would have only driven his need if it weren’t for the voice they were spoken it. It shook like a cobbled-together thing, reeking of a desperation that had nothing to do with the way their unclothed bodies entwined. It was a voice that begged, not out of desire but out of terror, out of agony, out of the teetering edge of something Celebrimbor could not understand. And Celebrimbor recoiled from it even as Annatar pressed closer, and pleaded to be fucked until he bled.

 _I don’t want to hurt you_ , Celebrimbor had whispered.

 _Do it anyways_ , was what Annatar hissed into his ear, as he forced himself down inch by inch until Celebrimbor was inside of him. _This isn’t sex_ , was all Celebrimbor could think as Annatar began to move, his cries equally of pleasure and of pain as he set a punishing rhythm. This was something else, something Celebrimbor could not grasp or understand, some wild darkness he’d sometimes glimpsed in the back of Annatar’s eyes that now came pouring out through his mouth in words.

He’d done it anyways, everything Annatar asked him to; trailing bruises after his fingertips and teeth, not backing down even when Annatar rolled them over and turned himself around, burying his face into the pillow so that he could better watch the shadows of memory that marched behind his eyelids. Celebrimbor had fucked him until a cold sweat slicked his skin, until his hands were trembling as if it were him that was being bruised. It wasn’t enough. Not even when Celebrimbor’s reservations had snapped under the weight of Annatar’s pleas, the need to make them _stop_ —and he had wrapped a fist in the Maia’s long hair and found the will to inflict real pain waiting inside himself.

No, not even then had it been enough. There was something inside Annatar that he could not reach, far deeper than the purple-red blotch of a bruise.

Celebrimbor watched him now, studied the tremor that roved through Annatar’s body, from his shoulders to his back to his hands. Celebrimbor could feel it—or perhaps that was merely his own shaking. He wanted to reach out for Annatar even as he reached back in time, to grab the person he had let himself become if only for a moment, the person who would roll Annatar over and _make_ him speak. The person who would demand an answer to the nightmares, the choked-off words Annatar bit in half even in the moment of his waking. He wanted to be the person that Annatar wanted, not the replacement who could only fumble through the motions in their stead.

The bruises stood up on Annatar’s back like words in a shameful language Celebrimbor had never known he could speak. He did not reach out for them. He could not be what Annatar wanted him to be. Celebrimbor could only lie silently as the moonlight scrolled over Annatar’s body, a mottled shape that seemed to grow smaller the longer Celebrimbor watched. Beyond him, the geography of the room had been swallowed by a darkness so absolute it stood like a hole torn in the world. Annatar stared into it, unblinking, and for a moment Celebrimbor was convinced that something in the void was stared back. 


End file.
